When it comes to successful board games from 2016, everyone knows T.I.M.E. Stories by Space Cowboys was one of, if not the most, successful. Not only did most people enjoy the game, expansions couldn’t be created fast enough to satisfy everyone’s desire to complete a new mission. Imagine then if you will the excitement level of the ERA team once we learned Space Cowboys was coming out with a new bunch of in-home escape games called Unlock! Escape Adventures. Suffice to say there was MUCH rejoicing! One of the Unlock! Escape Adventures scenarios we played through was Squeek & Sausage (yup, you read that correctly).

Let’s take a look at this game from top to bottom shall we? The component quality is fairly standard for all of the scenarios within the Unlock! series. With these games you receive a small box with some interesting artwork and the scenario title. Inside, you’ll receive a rulebook and two decks of cards. The smaller deck is a tutorial game that helps players understand the mechanics of the full game. The second, larger, deck is the full scenario (in this case Squeek & Sausage). In both cases the cards function as your ‘choices’ within the adventure, so unless you want to spoil your game DO NOT PEEK at these cards under any circumstances! The cards are roughly 50% larger than a standard deck of cards and are fairly good quality. There’s not much more than this to speak of so let’s look at the quality of the puzzles, tasks, and riddles within the game.

Of all the Unlock! scenarios, we found the puzzles in Squeek & Sausage to be the least fun for us. They weren’t bad, and they even provided us with fun “Aha!” moments, but overall we felt it was the weakest of the scenarios in this regard. This followed along with the immersive experience. The story of Squeek & Sausage didn’t seem to grab our attention as much as The Formula or The Island of Doctor Goorse. On the other hand, there were definitely enough puzzles to give 2-3 players a good challenge, especially if they haven’t played any previous Unlock! scenarios.

And finally the overall game experience; did it make for a fun hour of gaming? Again context is always key. In general, Squeek & Sausage is a good game that most people will enjoy. If you played and enjoyed T.I.M.E. stories, you’re almost certain to enjoy ALL of the different Unlock! scenarios to varying degrees. The only caution we have in giving it our full recommendation is that we enjoyed the other scenarios more than this one by a noticeable amount. Again, that doesn’t make it a bad game by any means, rather we’d suggest you play this scenario first (with 2-3 players), or if you have a choice, we’d suggest going with The Formula (for 2-3 players), or The Island of Doctor Goorse (for 4 players).

We want to hear your thoughts! Be sure to comment in the section below or send us a message via ERA’s email, Facebook, or Twitter… As always, happy escaping!